loftycomfort's Xanga

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 18:27:49 GMT

For the past year and a half, I've been working two jobs for the same company. To oversimply a few things, my "official" job is tedious, unchallengnig, not very respected within the company, and worst of all, have to put up with multiple power-tripping shift managers. By virtue of being a senior member of that team, I was probably best paid, but that wasn't saying much given how lowly regarded the function is within the company.

I was suckered into taking this job because the VP made some promises about the team's expansion that never materialized. In hindsight I'm a bad fit for that group - think of it as using a Porsche to deliver pizzas kind of bad fit. (I'll leave it up to you to figure out if I'm the Porsche or the pizza in this analogy)

My "unofficial" job, which is under a completely different division, is to develop pioneering software using our technologies, and quickly putting them into the market. The projects for this very small team involve architecting solutions that have never been done before - pushing the envelop till the ass-end hangs off of the razor edge. All this next-generation stuff is very high profile within the company, so my real job VP just turns a blind eye on me spending time on it.

I've been squeezing those two jobs into 9-hour days, with the pay, title, and recognition of the lesser one. Since October, I've been trying to get transfered out of the "real" job to the pioneer team. It's been a frustrating experience to say the least. First the real job VP has to agree to my transfer, then the process got delayed by personnel changes at the executive level, then my family issues got in the way. When I finally had a verbal agreement from the pioneer team, they couldn't get the CFO to open the vault for my salary (har har).

Well, I have some good news to share: after 8 months of (a lot of) begging and (very little) negotiating, I was finally officially promoted to be the Architect for the pioneer team.

With the transfer comes some perks too - a quieter cube in the corporation's posher building, and a new laptop. I was hoping I'd make a nice entrance to the new role. Well, HR neglected to tell me that the CFO (damn him!) still has the laptop purchase order buried in red tape, hence I'm stuck with my existing clunker desktop, AND, since we don't have a corporate mover, I have to move the computer and all of my own shit to the new office by myself. The IT guy didn't even offer to move the desktop for me. He must be in a union or something.

Yesterday was my first day in the new office, reporting to duty for a job I've been working on for a year. You should see the entrance that I made - dragging a dolley loaded up with my shit. Talk about ghetto style promotion. The receptionist actually sent me to the freight elevator, saying she's never seen a vending machine supplies guy dresses so nicely.

It took me a couple of hours to settle in (the phone and network didn't work on first try, surprise surprise), and the people here are puzzled at my desktop. I'm just glad that I am finally out of the sweatshop; I can finally say with pride that I'm a Pizza, I mean Porsche.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Tue, 01 May 2007 21:55:13 GMT

This is what's been keeping me busy.

You may start replacing "the" with "teh" in your vocabulary because even Wikipedia has acknowledged teh's um, arrival:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teh

Anyone who dares to challenge teh status of "teh" should be dismissed as not getting teh Interweb culture.

We're going on a vacation at the end of the month. Personally I'd be happy with taking a few days off from work and just stay home. But the wife has this crazy idea of flying to Paris and London for a week.

The only European country I've ever been to was Portugal, but I can't really claim with conviction that I've been to Europe because it really doesn't count.

"Have you ever been to Europe?"

"No I haven't. But I've visited Portugal back in 2000."

"You dumb ass."

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 21:38:11 GMT

In light of the Virginia Tech shooting, can someone please explain to me why guns aren't banned in the US please?

Gun proponents tend to have the following two arguments (in red is my view):

The gun is merely the means to commit the crime, hence it should not be banned. Case in point: fertilizer should not be banned just because Timothy McVeigh used it to destroy the Oklahoma City Federal building. The root cause is the perpetrator and the focus should be put on that person. Terry: the main purpose of fertilizer is to grow big fat beets, where as a gun has no other purpose than to kill. What is the logic of NOT banning something of which the sole purpose is to kill? The point of focusing on the perpetrator is completely valid, but what is wrong with taking the means away from him? A counselor does not give a potential killer a knife and expect him to not use it.
A person determined to cause harm to others will not be stopped even if guns were banned. Terry: if we can't stop a twisted mind , then at least we should make it tremendously difficult for him to acquire a gun. If the person has to jump through hoops to obtain a gun, then maybe he could be stopped during that process. As oppose to a scenario in a gun-everywhere society where one could wake up in the morning, brush his teeth, have a coffee, then go buy a gun from the supermarket and shoot everyone in sight.

Comments please.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Mon, 22 Jan 2007 23:07:01 GMT

I thought I should give you an update on what's been going on in the last few months.

Sept 2006 - my parents started staying at my aunt's place in London, Ontario. She has contacts with some local doctors from whom my dad could get better cancer treatment - advance stage cancer
October 2006 - my brother quit his job in Hong Kong. He came back to Canada to take care of the parents
The doctors told my dad he has "weeks" to live
November 2006 - dad's condition stabled a bit, enough to take a Carribean cruise. But his pain lingered
December 2006 - they moved back to Toronto
December 31, 2006 - the lingering abdominal pain suddenly turned into sharp pain. We took him to Sunnybrook's emergency room
Throughout the entire time he was in the hospital right up to the end, he had good days and bad days.
My mom was almost constantly by his bedside. We tried our best to spend as much time with him as possible
Two of my aunts flew in from Hong Kong to see him. They each stayed for a couple of days.
January 15, 2007, 9:45am - after having breakfast, my dad fell asleep. Then he peacefully passed away. My mother was by his side.
January 20 - the funeral was held at York Cemetery. A number of friends, family and former colleagues flew in from all over the world. Edmond Chan was finally laid to rest on this cold but bright winter day around 1pm.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 22:12:13 GMT

"Yak-kee Shan"

What I was called by a Cuban dude while visiting Havana a couple of weeks ago.

Twenty years ago, I coulda been called "Bru-cey Lee". These days I'm Yak-kee, now that's progress.

PS: for those who don't get it, "Yak-kee Shan" is how "Jackie Chan" is pronounced in Spanish.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 16:49:17 GMT

I like to complain to my friends about how radio stations start playing Christmas songs when it's not even late November, or how Walmart is already plugging plastic pine trees and sparking shit (thank goodness those Jesus freaks haven't yet been mobilized). But I can't complain about the 2 huge empty boxes that are sitting in our office kitchenette that have "toy drive" and "food drive" written on them, 'cause that'd make me an asshole. That's not good.

So I tossed in a few items in the toy drive box.

I had a couple of airplane model kits that were kicking around and won't ever get built, but I wasn't sure about donating them because like porn, they're suitable only for kids 12 and up. I emailed the office manager if it's a good idea to donate model kits that require glue. Her response was:

"That's a fantastic idea! Teenagers are often overlooked during toy drives, so these kits would make a great gifts for those young punks."

Ok she didn't use the word punk but whatever. I thought about tossing in a tube of glue too, to make it a complete "out-of-box" present but decided against it - surely Santa is a bigger man than I, and I figured if it was good enough for hom to give me a walking quacking duck without the batteries, then it is good enough for me to give a model kit without glue. I had a suspicion that the recipient might actually enjoy sniffing the glue more than building the kit, but I didn't have a box of spare glue sitting around so too bad for him. The kid could just go to his neighbourhood drug dealer for a fix, it sure beats waiting for charity high.

One of the kits I tossed into the box was a MiG fighter jet that I got for free in a hobby show. During lunch yesterday I pay the hobby store a visit and found out - after making the donation - that the MiG costs $44! Great Terry, that was fucking brilliant. I could have sold the thing on ebay and use the money to buy more kits do donate. Shit, with that money I could even toss in a few copies of Playboy, that surely would make a teenager really happy.

Hey buddy, here's an airplane model kit, merry fucking christmas. No glue? No problem, use this Hustler to make your home made glue.

On second thought, maybe I should have donated toy guns from the Dollar Store (44 or them!!). They could use them to rob those losers lining outside of BestBuy for PS3.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 21:59:03 GMT

Hey folks, a very kind lady on Xanga sent me a note a few days. Since I haven't posted anything since I blogged about purchasing a new car, she was checking in to make sure I didn't like, got killed on the highway or something.

I've recently found another addition - building scale plastic model airplanes. If you think blogging and surfing the web is time-consuming, you should try building these things. Here are a couple that I did:

A lot of you have played with these with you were little, they usually come in kits with parts that look like these:

You cut the parts from the trees; clean them up; glue them; fill gaps; sand them smooth; prime them, paint them and put sticker on them. Building one of these to a presentable standard takes hundreds of hours.

I still sign in occassionally to check out my subscriptions, though. So don't think I am missing out on your nekkid pix just because you don't see me posting.

Monday, March 27, 2006

Mon, 27 Mar 2006 17:53:04 GMT

A buddy or mine is one of those Honda-loyal car freaks that makes his life-goal converting everyone to drive a Honda - even if it means making himself the butt of every joke when the guys hung out for a beer. He'd tell me how his Honda has saved him gas and maintainence money and how super uncool my Nissan is. Think of him as the automotive version of those dumb missionaries that go to Iraq to tell the locals how much their God sucks. He even referred the Honda sales guy as his good buddy and I should definitely buy from him.

I, of course, igored him - for the most part. I never bought a car from that sales guy, but I did end up marrying his daughter. Before you single guys start lining up at Honda for girls, please let me clarify that I met Ellen the conventional way - going to a website and clicking on each other's pics and swapping IMs before we changed our last names to "Right". Hence it's not like I went car shopping and ended up going home with a wife.

Well, it looks like it's more of the reverse has happened - the daughter is bringing in customers for his dad. That's right folks, I'll be picking up a brand new Honda tomorrow night that looks exactly like this one:

So it doesn't ooze fuck-me like the sexy Infiniti I've been dreaming about does, but it'll do for now because I can finally get rid of a car that's powered by a can-opener: the wife's Civic that we are trading in.

You should see my failed attempt to haggle a better deal out of a car salesman who happens to be my father inlaw. It went something like this:

Father inlaw: So Terry, with tax and freight, you monthly payment is $418.

Me: How 'bout we make it even at $400?

Wife: Shut up Terry! Just sign the paper already!

Me: Ok.

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Tue, 31 Jan 2006 16:52:10 GMT

Happy Lunar new year everyone! I'm gonna end my blogging hiatus with a confession because there's nothing better than dishing out dirty little secrets to kick start a new beginning.

I'm a fan of The Bachelor!

No, I'm not a fan of the dude himself although I must concede that if I were a chick, I would wrap myself around him like the peel on an orange. I'm simply enamoured with this reality show that puts lust, deceit, cattiness all the other high traits demonstrated by the female gender when a hot guy is on the line sugar-coated in a neat and tidy anti-Springer-esque package.

I'd imagine if I were 10 years younger, I'd still love this show because there is no wetter dream than a dozen hot women in slinky dresses and fuck-me heels clamoring for my attention (I call this the "Joey fantasy"). Nowadays the show appeals more to the sicker side of my psyche because where else would you find satisfaction in seeing not one, but a dozen beautiful women who otherwise would be turning you down getting rejected (the "Chandler wet dream")? I don't particularly envy having the task of juggling (haha I said "juggling") twelve women, but I love watching someone else doing the dirty work of rejecting them. It's not unlike the twisted sense of rush you experience when autographing a white fluffy blanket of virgin snow with your piss.

The episode next week will be the part when the bachelor would visit the parents of the 4 girls in succession. If I were the bachelor, this is the part where I would suggest the producers bringing in the average Joe audience to fill in, I mean, participate. In the subsequent episode where the show goes back to the flower petals and bubble bath in a hotel room and all that shit, I'd slip back in again. How convenient.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Tue, 13 Sep 2005 03:59:13 GMT

Almost back to work...

Will blog more when it's all settled.